The Arab tribe
Ulad Bu Aziz, in the Dukkala province of Morocco, kindle midsummer
bonfires, not for themselves and their cattle, but only for crops and
fruit; nobody likes to reap his crops before Midsummer Day, because if
he did they would lose the benefit of the blessed influence which flows
from the smoke of the bonfires. Again, the Beni Mgild, a Berber tribe of
Morocco, light fires of straw on Midsummer Eve and leap thrice over them
to and fro. They let some of the smoke pass underneath their clothes,
and married women hold their breasts over the fire, in order that their
children may be strong. Moreover, they paint their eyes and lips with
some black powder, in which ashes of the bonfire are mixed. And in order
that their horses may also benefit by the fires, they dip the right
forelegs of the animals in the smoke and flames or in the hot embers,
and they rub ashes on the foreheads and between the nostrils of the
horses. Berbers of the Rif province, in northern Morocco, similarly make
great use of fires at midsummer for the good of themselves, their
cattle, and their fruit-trees. They jump over the bonfires in the belief
that this will preserve them in good health, and they light fires under
fruit-trees to keep the fruit from falling untimely. And they imagine
that by rubbing a paste of the ashes on their hair they prevent the hair
from falling off their heads.[553]
[Beneficial effect ascribed to the smoke of the fires; ill luck supposed
to be burnt in the Midsummer fires; the Midsummer festival in North
Africa comprises rites concerned with water as well as with fire; the
Midsummer festival in North Africa is probably older than
Mohammedanism.
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